1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wiring harness with sound absorber in which a sound absorber and a wiring harness are integrated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, sound insulators and sound absorbers made of soft materials such as glass wool, rock wool, porous ceramic and waste cotton have been provided near devices, which generate noise, in a vehicle for the purpose of enhancing the vehicle interior quietness of an automotive vehicle. However, nonwoven fabrics are used in many of these sound insulators and sound absorbers at present from the perspective of the workability of sound insulators and sound absorbers, influences on human bodies, recyclability, environmental loads and weight reduction.
Further, there have been rapid growths in performances and functions centering on automotive vehicles, electronic products and the like in recent years. For the precise operation of various electronic facilities such as these automotive vehicles and electronic products, it is necessary to use a plurality of wires for internal wiring. These plurality of wires are generally used in the form of a wiring harness. The wiring harness is formed by assembling a plurality of wires into a form necessary for wiring in advance and covering the outer periphery of a wire bundle with a wiring harness protective material having one of various shapes such as a tape shape, a tube shape and a sheet shape after performing necessary branching, the mounting of connectors on ends and the like.
A wiring harness mounted in an automotive vehicle is arranged in the vehicle to electrically connect various electric components including devices which generate noise as described above. This wiring harness may generate noise by contacting a vehicle body or another member or the like in the vehicle such as due to vibration. To suppress such noise, protective materials such as urethane sheets and PVC sheets may be provided in the vehicle. A known wiring harness is shown, for example in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-235126.
The above protective materials such as urethane sheets or PVC sheets used for the wiring harness have not only a cushioning function, but also a silencing function. Since these have use application and purpose different from those of sound absorbers, they are arranged separately from the sound absorbers in the vehicle.
These protective materials having the silencing function exhibit very good performance in knocking sound characteristic. However, they have a disadvantage of being poor in silencing effect as compared to sound absorbers made of nonwoven fabrics concerning rubbing sound generated by the rubbing of the wiring harness and the vehicle body or the wiring harness and another member in the vehicle. Thus, vehicle interior quietness may be impaired due to the entrance of the rubbing sound generated in the vehicle into the vehicle interior.